We continue to work for the Effectiveness of Cooperation

On 4, 5 and 6 December, ORU Fogar returned eight years later to Busan (South Korea), the site of the 2011 OECD-UNDP Summit on Effectiveness of Cooperation. And it did so to participate in the Busan 2019 Forum entitled 'Revitalizing Busan's Global Partnership to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals' and for the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) meeting.

In these events, ORU Fogar was represented by the Director General for Global Affairs of the Government of Catalonia, Elisabet Nebreda, who did not miss the opportunity to highlight "the very important role that regional governments play in global agendas". In multilateral forums," she explained, "states have the leading role. But they have to count on us, because the same OECD report states that 65 % of the 169 targets linked to the 17 SDGs will not be achieved without commitment and coordination with regional and local governments".

It is worth recalling that the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation platform was created in 2011 within the framework of the IV High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, also in South Korea. In this context, states and international organisations at all levels involved in development agreed to create the GPEDC to improve the way the international community works with development programmes. Under the umbrella of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Global Partnership involves 161 countries and 56 organisations working to increase the impact of development co-operation on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the 2030 Agenda. 

Since February 2014, ORU Fogar, together with UCLG, has been a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Partnership, with the aim of giving a voice to intermediate governments. This partnership steering committee brings together 25 representatives of all kinds, including governments, the European Commission, international bodies, trade unions, civil society organisations and multilateral development banks. The 18th Steering Committee meeting was held in Busan, where the new work programme and partnership priorities were discussed and approuved.